Engineer Memoirs
A:
Not really. Our main contacts were with the local Vietnamese concerning security and
our construction work. For example, we had to deal with them about their flooding of
their rice paddies along the route of this road project.
We couldn't solve the secret of the overall drainage. We had to try to get the local
Vietnamese authorities to help us to keep these rice farmers from flooding us out. We
had some success in that, working through the Vietnamese provincial officers.
We did work with Vietnamese engineer units. When Vietnamization got going strong,
we turned equipment over to them. I remember we got an order to turn a rock crusher
over to them. That was quite traumatic because we had been struggling to get our own
rock crushing capabilities up. We had to divert a lot of effort to get a crusher ready to
transfer. We sent people down into the delta with this machine to help the Vietnamese
set it up and operate it. But as far as the other work was concerned, no. Not to any
great extent.
I should mention rock crushing as another big preoccupation. There was a large quarry
at Vung Tau, which was operated by the 36th Engineer Battalion and a quarry
company. The 36th Engineers moved out of Vung Tau down to Vinh Long. The quarry
company was left behind. We managed to triple the production out of this quarry. It
took some pretty tough dealing with people. We relieved one company commander.
Q:
It was just generally a question of creating a sense of urgency?
A:
Yes, and getting them organized. The thing that frustrated me--had before and has
since--is that the managers didn't seem to be very tough-minded about what had to be
done.
If equipment went down, everybody would say, "Well, I guess that's all for today. We'll
go home." My attitude was that since the only thing that counted in any quarry was the
equipment, when any machine was down, you worked on it 24 hours a day until it was
fixed.
We had things that wore out, but we never seemed to have the replacements in time.
We had a cone crusher, which is a very fine piece of equipment. Shortly after I got
there, the cone wore through, which happens. So I said, "Well, have we a replacement
cone?" No. So we ordered one. That crusher sat there for a month and a half while we
got a cone. Soon after I asked, "Have we ordered a replacement cone for this one?"
No. Then we had quite a scene.
Finally, by the time I got ready to leave, the cone wore through again, which was not
unreasonable. And by golly, we did have a replacement when it wore through. But can
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